Esther Posner - March 11, 1986

Hiding from Nazis

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Now while we were in hiding um, this Klei...the Kleinjan's where we were for a year and half, the only time we were in, you know, we were always upset. There was--we always got news from the outside world that there were going to be razzias, they were going--they were looking for Jews, they were uh, people were being picked up all over off the street. But we were safe. I mean, nothing ever happened. Except once, the, the, the Nazis went from door to door. And uh, we knew they were going to come to our street. We had been told them were coming to every home and they were looking for Jews and they were also looking for men who could be sent to Germany as laborers.

Non-Jews.

Yes. And uh, the man--the husband of the family we were staying was a railroad worker. And he stayed home from work and he went into the hiding place with us. We, we watched through the curtains and uh, his wife watched as they came down the street. And uh, at a certain point my father said, "Okay, now we're going into the hiding place." We felt we couldn't stay in there too long. I mean, you can't, you just can't. So we got into the hiding place and we stood there and we heard the doorbell ring and we heard them come in the house and we heard them go through the house. And they came into the room we were in and they looked, they searched that room and they were right there in the room and um, at one point I said to my mother--I whispered, "Are they still there?" and she put her hand over my mouth. And I know I had the urge to scream. I really did. And I controlled myself. I think that everybody had a lot of confidence in me, that I would just do the right thing, that I wouldn't scream, that I wouldn't do anything that the adults weren't doing. And uh, I think because of it I, I acted almost like an adult when I um, then we had to leave the Kleinjan's.